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BRITISH MUSIC; Middle-Class Master

In his article ''What Is British Music?'' [April 19], Paul Griffiths makes much of the fact that Sir Edward Elgar was not a member of the aristocracy. What possible connection exists between musical talent and social class?

As every British school pupil knows, Elgar was lucky enough to grow up in an intensely musical atmosphere, and he mastered most of the musical instruments in his dad's music shop at an astonishingly early age. He made a very good marriage to one of his students and lived in a succession of attractive middle-class homes. The level of public recognition he received would have made today's struggling composers quite envious.